Who attains social status? Effects of personality and physical attractiveness in social groups.

One of the most important goals and outcomes of social life is to attain status in the groups to which we belong. Such face-to-face status is defined by the amount of respect, influence, and prominence each member enjoys in the eyes of the others. Three studies investigated personological determinants of status in social groups (fraternity, sorority, and dormitory), relating the Big Five personality traits and physical attractiveness to peer ratings of status. High Extraversion substantially predicted elevated status for both sexes. High Neuroticism, incompatible with male gender norms, predicted lower status in men. None of the other Big Five traits predicted status. These effects were independent of attractiveness, which predicted higher status only in men. Contrary to previous claims, women's status ordering was just as stable as men's but emerged later. Discussion focuses on personological pathways to attaining status and on potential mediators. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in emotion: Expression, experience, and physiology.

Although previous studies of emotional responding have found that women are more emotionally expressive than men, it remains unclear whether men and women differ in other domains of emotional response. We assessed the expressive, experiential, and physiological emotional responses of men and women in 2 studies. In Study 1, undergraduates viewed emotional films. Compared with men, women were more expressive, did not differ in reports of experienced emotion, and demonstrated different patterns of skin conductance responding. In Study 2, undergraduate men and women viewed emotional films and completed self-report scales of expressivity, gender role characteristics, and family expressiveness. Results replicated those from Study 1, and gender role characteristics and family expressiveness moderated the relationship between sex and expressivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in the time course of emotion.

Conventional wisdom holds that women are more "emotional" than men. However, research evidence suggests that sex differences in emotion are considerably more complex. The authors tested hypotheses about sex differences in the engagement of the approach and avoidance motivational systems thought to underpin emotional responses. The authors measured reported emotional experience and startle response magnitude both during the presentation and after the offset of emotional stimuli that engage these motivational systems to assess whether men and women differ in their patterns of immediate response to emotional stimuli and in their patterns of recovery from these responses. Our findings indicated that women were more experientially reactive to negative, but not positive, emotional pictures compared to men, and that women scored higher than men on measure of aversive motivational system sensitivity. Although both men and women exhibited potentiation of the startle response during the presentation of negative pictures relative to neutral pictures, only women continued to show this relative potentiation during the recovery period, indicating that women were continuing to engage the aversive motivational system after the offset of negative emotional pictures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal consequences of social anxiety.

The behavioral manifestations of social anxiety may have implications for social outcomes. Unfortunately, little is known about how anxiety shapes social interaction. The present study examined social interactions in dyads consisting of either 2 nonsocially anxious (NSA) individuals or 1 socially anxious (SA) and 1 NSA individual. Behavior, self-reported affect, and perceptions were examined. In comparison with the interactions of NSA pairs, high levels of fidgeting, poor reciprocity of smiling behavior, more self-talk, and more frequent reassurance seeking and giving characterized interactions between SA and NSA participants. Both SA participants and their NSA partners rated their interactions as being less smooth and coordinated than did participants in NSA-NSA dyads. In addition, SA participants' reassurance seeking and self-talk correlated negatively with partner positive affect and perceptions of interaction quality. The authors discuss self-focused attention and the interpersonal consequences of social anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotion, social function, and psychopathology.

The studies of emotion function and emotional disorders complement one another. In this article, the authors outline relations between the social functions of emotion and four psychological disorders. The authors first present a social-functional account of emotion and argue that emotions help coordinate social interactions through their informative, evocative, and incentive functions. They then review evidence concerning the emotional and social problems related to depression, schizophrenia, social anxiety, and borderline personality disorder and consider how the emotional disturbances related to these disorders disrupt interactions and relationships, thus contributing further to the maintenance of the disorder. They conclude by discussing research strategies relevant to the study of emotion, social interaction, and psychopathology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does anhedonia in schizophrenia reflect faulty memory for subjectively experienced emotions?

The authors evaluated whether self-reported trait anhedonia in schizophrenia reflects faulty memory, such that patients are capable of experiencing pleasure while engaged in enjoyable activities but underestimate their pleasure in recalling these experiences. Thirty schizophrenia patients and 31 nonpatient control participants rated their emotional responses to pleasant and neutral foods and film clips and completed a surprise recall task for their emotions after a 4-hr delay. Despite reporting elevated trait anhedonia, patients did not significantly differ from control participants in immediate pleasant emotional responses to the stimuli or in delayed recall for these experiences. In-the-moment pleasure and short-term retention for emotional experiences thus appear to be relatively intact in schizophrenia. Alternative explanations for the hedonic deficit in this disorder are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)